ALEXANDER OF HALES (ALEXANDER HALENSIS), known as DOCTOR IRREFRAGABILIS, was one of the first English scholars and theologians to make his influence felt in Paris. Born c. 1175 in Gloucestershire, he went to study at Paris, where he became a master of arts sometime before 1210. About 1231 he entered the Friars Minor, and after his appointment as the first magister regens of the chair of theology held by his order in the university became celebrated as a teacher. John of Rochelle, Bonaventura and probably Roger Bacon were among his pupils. He died in 1245. Roger Bacon tells us that Alexander's Summa Theologiae weighed more than a horse and was not entirely of his own composition. The latter statement is well substantiated, and pending publication of the critical edition which is being made by the Franciscans of Quaracchi little can be said with certainty about Alexander's theories. However, we know that he attempted to correlate the predominating Augustinianism of his day with the newly introduced philosophy of Aristotle and the Arabians, and apart from the doctrines that were common to the scholastics (see SCHOLASTICISM) we find in him certain theories that were to become characteristic of the Franciscan school. Thus he admits the plurality of forms, the independence of body and soul, the existence of an intelligible matter or potency in all spiritual creatures, and the Augustinian theory of Divine Illumination in knowledge. Alexander's Summa Theologiae (best edition, Venice 1576) was extensively utilized by Albert the Great, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventura.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-See J. Endres, Des A. von H. Leben und psychol. Bibliography.-See J. Endres, Des A. von H. Leben und psychol. Lehre in Philos. Jahrb. (1888) ; J. Guttmann, A. de H. et le judaisme in Rev. Etudes Juives (189o) and Die Scholastik des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts in ihren Beziehungen zum Judentum (19o2) ; P. Minges, Zur Psychologie des A. von H. in Philos. Jahrb. (1915).